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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23036677">Heart of Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/theZanyArthropleura/pseuds/theZanyArthropleura'>theZanyArthropleura</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Overwatch (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bride Sombra, Dr. Junkenstein - Freeform, F/F, Junkenstein's Revenge, Summoner Satya, moderately AU from the in-lore stories, non-evil Witch Mercy mention, sharing a stone floor, slightly macabre but not really, yes a halloween fic in march this is what my schedule is like</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:28:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23036677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/theZanyArthropleura/pseuds/theZanyArthropleura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Summoner gestured to the board with slight impatience. “Who provides the instruction?”</p><p>The scientist grew nervous again. “<em>They</em> do, sometimes” he answered sheepishly, a shrugging shoulder vaguely directed back toward the body behind him.</p><p>For a few moments, the Summoner internally debated the circuitous logic of a being yet to be created providing instruction for its own creation, before realizing it was one of her premises that must have been faulty.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sombra | Olivia Colomar/Satya "Symmetra" Vaswani</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heart of Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Summoner didn’t think much of it, when the Bride made her presence known in the halls of the castle. Yet another of the scientist’s creations, of course, though somewhat distinct from the others in her inferable ties to the first. The green-skinned woman in a modified, worn-but-not-tattered bridal gown had shown the Summoner a few curious smiles, yet always disappeared rather quickly, to some other supposed engagement, before any significant interaction could take place.</p><p>Perhaps she simply liked to be mysterious, the Summoner had decided after several weeks of pondering the frequent, perhaps not-accidental meetings from afar. All the scientist’s creations had shown distant, yet decidedly non-malicious interest in her, but the Bride’s seemed of a different order entirely, in a way the Summoner was still trying to place.</p><p>The Summoner’s heart was fire, but she commanded the flames with a magic all her own, to give them shape and composition of a different kind. She couldn’t create <em>life</em>, exactly, only things that mimicked life, such as her caster and sentry creatures. Still, it was close enough to the real thing to be the starting point of the scientist’s own creations.</p><p>That was the service she provided. She created… parts of the whole, shape without blood, to be assembled and given true life by the lightning the scientist could draw to the castle.</p><p>She’d been offered a permanent – or at least, as often as she pleased – residence in the ancient building, and the reason was rather plain. The scientist had increased production, lightning now striking the castle at a rate of more or less twice per week.</p><p>And with it, the rooms had started filling up.</p><p>There were now numerous creations of the same pale green, stitched skin roaming the castle, and the Summoner remained continually perplexed as to their purpose. They didn’t tend the grounds, procure supplies, or prepare meals – the machines did those things. As odd as it might be, they seemed to <em>have</em> no purpose, besides perhaps serving as evidence of the scientist’s capabilities.</p><p>As always, several sets of eyes followed her progress through the ancient building, but none disturbed her as she made her way to one of the large, spiral staircases that ran up the castle’s numerous, ascending turrets.</p><p>Cutting across a narrow, flattened rise of wall in the slight gap between two adjacent towers was a hidden-away balcony that followed the two curving-away walls for several meters outward, the staggered, stone-wall railing stretching a moderately greater length than the back wall outlining the arched doorway. The Summoner had found the space many centuries ago, and returned there often, pleased by the solitude it offered and the relative quiet it provided, being on the opposite side of the main castle from the bulk of the lightning-catching coils the scientist had affixed to it.</p><p>Today, though, the Summoner found the space already occupied.</p><p>“Fancy meeting you here,” the Bride teased with a light shrug and a dangerous smile. She was sitting at the far end of the stone bench on the right side of the space, her right, bandaged arm draped gently over the decorative armrest and the other, lace-gloved arm stretched out along the narrow backrest. In the moonlight, the shadow of the right-side turret fell diagonally across the bench and toward the doorway, both the soft white slippers on her crossed feet and the cherry-red fingernails of her left hand caught just within the perimeter of shadow to leave the woman resting entirely in darkness.</p><p>The Summoner must have spent too long in observance, because the Bride merely arched a stylishly-incomplete eyebrow further toward the two parallel, wavy lines of white that streaked through her dark hair just over her ear. Eventually though, the expression softened.</p><p>“This your spot?” the Bride asked, the words curt but far more genuine. For a moment, she looked almost guilty as she removed her arms from their places of rest and drew her right foot closer to the bench, making ready to stand. Her heel appeared to dig in at the last second, however, the course of her movement shifting almost invisibly to a mere rearrangement of posture. Her left elbow settled casually atop her right wrist, gloved forearm propped in front of her as she took to examining her nails with a somewhat resolute show of apathy.</p><p>The Summoner wasn’t sure what to make of any of it, but thus far, the Bride’s presence had showed no open signs of being intolerably intrusive. In fact, it was perhaps quite the <em>opposite</em>, in a strange way. The faint sensation that coursed through her at the other woman’s proximity, and at the idea of it continuing… it was oddly disarming, in a way that confused the Summoner greatly, but where she would have expected impending discomfort, she sensed none at all.</p><p>“I make no formal claim to it, but I reside here often enough.” She clarified evenly, then turned away and took her usual place at the oppositely-far end of the other bench – which she’d determined was the absolute farthest, sound-wise, from the occasional striking of the coils. “If you are quiet, and make no distractions, I do not object to your presence.”</p><p>The Bride <em>laughed</em>, but made sufficient effort to suppress the gesture. “I’ll try my best, <em>amiga</em>, but no promises. And I’m pretty sure that last one’s more on <em>you</em> than it is on me.”</p><p>An implication of some sort was imbued in the latter words, much like the woman’s very first words upon their meeting, but the Summoner resisted the idea of a returned glance to collect any clues offered by whatever facial expression the Bride might be carrying.</p><p>The former statement had been rather clear, though, and gave the Summoner pause, but in the silence that stretched afterward, the warning appeared to be for naught. The Bride remained quiet even as the minutes passed on, distant thunder and the howling of wolves fading into the soothing ambience of light rain against the surrounding stone walls.</p><p>“…The mist going through the trees,” the Bride finally interrupted, “it’s kinda like… an ocean? Is that what it’s called?”</p><p>The Summoner opened a single, yellow, reptilian eye at the disturbance, having had them both closed to focus solely on the noise – something, she then noted, she rarely allowed of herself when there were others present.</p><p>“…Oh,” the Bride acknowledged guiltily, quieting again.</p><p>The mist <em>did</em> flow like waves, only more slowly. Trees rising from beneath it like the whole of the land was flooded. The Summoner had noticed that, too, but… she’d noticed it hundreds of years ago. It wasn’t something she thought about, anymore.</p><p>Until <em>now</em>, that was.</p><p>“It is… a pleasing phenomenon, yes,” the Summoner stumbled through semi-awkwardly.</p><p>“The forest, there’s just… so <em>much</em> of it,” the Bride took the assumed invitation, but kept her words soft. “From up here… I’m <em>looking</em> at that. It feels nice.”</p><p>The Summoner had forgotten most of that feeling, the familiar sensations numbing with passing time, but now, she found the wonder of it all to be strangely half-renewed, merely at it having been mentioned again. “You’re new, I suppose,” she reasoned aloud.</p><p>“No,” the Bride answered with a tone difficult to parse, before correcting quickly. “Well, <em>yes</em>… sort of?” She grew silent then, but in a way that seemed entirely unconnected to the Summoner’s preferences.</p><p>The quiet wasn’t as pleasant as it had been prior, the Summoner’s gaze soon drifting to the reserved and hesitant form occupying the opposite bench. Her eyes had easily adjusted to the darkness that fell over the woman, piercing a shield intended to conceal her state of clear discomfort.</p><p>Those eyes were then drawn to the line of stitches that cut across the Bride’s cheek and ended near the corner of her lips. An artifact of the creation process, where the divide hadn’t completely sealed. It was <em>hardly</em> an unattractive feature, the Summoner decided, very aware that she was now keeping her eyes bonded to the spot to avoid them from drifting the <em>other</em> line of stitches just visible, by the cut of her dress, along the Bride’s inner right thigh.</p><p>“You… were created rather recently… for your <em>betrothed</em>, were you not?” The unexpected weight of the Summoner’s curiosity only fully occurred to her after the question had been uttered.</p><p>Whatever the moment had been building into, on either of their parts, halted all at once when the Bride was overcome with a sudden, uproarious fit of <em>laughter</em>.</p><p>“W-<em>what?</em> Are you… <em>amiga</em>, are you <em>serious? </em>” A dark, bewildered but cutting grin of amusement directed at the Summoner kept a tenuous, momentary hold on the Bride’s composure. “Me? Be with…” She chuckled again, already seeming unable to help herself. “Don’t tell me you <em>actually</em> believed that.”</p><p>The Summoner narrowed her eyes, reconsidering her own depth of knowledge – admittedly, largely influenced by the stories that had spread prior to her most recent visit – but taking in the whole of the other woman’s form with an arched brow. “Then why are you wearing a wedding dress?”</p><p>Sombra smirked deeply, with an arched brow of her own. “Because <em>who’s going to stop me? </em>”</p><p>The Summoner blinked reptilian eyes in confusion. Even after several moments of contemplation, she was still unable to see the logic of the statement, but she found she nonetheless couldn’t help but admire the genuine spirit in the woman’s pointed enthusiasm.</p><p>She knew she shouldn’t have believed the stories of mortals, but she tended to keep the details, at least, within her consideration, for the fact they were seldom <em>entirely</em> wrong. Motives were always twisted, events rarely so, and still rarely were events manufactured entirely.</p><p>The Summoner would know, of course. Legend told she’d sealed her service to the Witch of the Wilds, with a pact drawn out in blood. A creature with a heart like flowing magma, the Summoner didn’t <em>have</em> blood any longer, and the Witch…</p><p>The Witch would have certainly been appalled by a practice so unsanitary, her true nature far from the dealmaker she’d been painted as. In her mortal life, she’d been a <em>doctor</em>, one who’d boldly sought to heal more wounds and cure more ills than science alone would allow. Such, then, was reason enough to mark her as one to be feared, the would-be taker of debts and binder of souls that none should dare turn to in their hour of need.</p><p>That was the way of mortals and their stories, and the necessities therein, ruled by fear and its usefulness in controlling their own: that all things not understood be dark, and that all things dark have a price.</p><p>It was the same, then, with the tale of the Bride… no, <em>not</em> the Bride, it seemed. But then… no, that simply couldn’t stand.</p><p>“If you are not the creature’s bride… who are you?” the Summoner queried with expectant curiosity.</p><p>The other woman hesitated, her posture uncertain for a moment, before she relaxed with a confident smirk, eyes averting as they followed the line of the tower’s shadow along the balcony and out to its source. “Sombra,” she answered cryptically, red lips twisting into the word with newfound satisfaction.</p><p>“I’m Sombra.”</p><p><em>Sombra</em>… the Summoner thought, watching as the strange woman settled into a focused relaxation, one undoubtably felt as a noticed presence throughout the whole of her. Those eyes, that so often seemed to convey much more than was discernable, didn’t meet the Summoner’s again, but drifted back over the whole of the distant forest with the awe of one seeing such sights for the first time. Perhaps, in fact, of seeing anything <em>at all</em> for the first time, despite the doubts she’d newly cast upon that assessment.</p><p>But if there was any one thing that was certain, above all…</p><p>Sombra was <em>alive</em>, in a way that threatened, after so many millennia, to outright redefine the word.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>There was a knock at her door.</p><p>The scientist rarely contacted her at hours where her services hadn’t been requested in advance – and usually not even then, given her impressive record of punctuality – but the sound of an artificial hand striking the old wood was distinct enough to make the visitor’s identity obvious even before he spoke.</p><p>“Uh, hey, so…” Dr. Junkenstein began with a strange hesitance, “I really… I could kinda use your help ‘bout now. Usually better at thinkin’ ahead, but…”</p><p>The Summoner didn’t like being disturbed, especially given the scientist’s occasional wild unpredictability, but she took a moment to adjust and opened the door regardless, crossing her own mismatched arms and giving the hunched man a muted, but distasteful glare.</p><p>In the moments where he wasn’t too occupied with his work to pay her mind, the scientist actually seemed intimidated by her, often nervously scratching the back of his neck when he had something to ask her. It was the same now, and it was only after the Summoner began to tap her armored heel in impatience that more progress was made in the interaction.</p><p>“Need ya for somethin’” the scientist asked with the strange, slight air of a desperate plea. “An’ it’s kinda urgent, so…”</p><p>The Summoner shrugged, uncrossing her arms to gesture the man to lead the way.</p><p>She’d been in the room itself numerous times, both for the performance of her usual services and because the sheer size of what had once been a grand throne room made crossing the space nearly unavoidable in navigating the lower floors of the castle. Still, though, she’d never actually witnessed one of the scientist’s projects during the final construction stage, as was the observable current case once she’d followed the hunched and muttering man around the final bend of the main hall.</p><p>The figure lay flat on the large, horizontal operating table, mostly complete but still missing the skin and cartilage of a proper face. The presently exposed skull looked, in fact, rather strange with the surrounding muscle structure already applied over the bone, the rounded sockets already inset with whole, yet lifeless eyes.</p><p>There were actual schematics drawn out on a chalkboard to the side of the table, which surprised the Summoner, as previously, she’d assumed most of the creations were made on whatever whim the scientist had been struck with at the time. There were notes scrawled next to the pictures, as well, defining specific parameters of the project with unexpected detail.</p><p>The handwriting wasn’t the scientist’s, the Summoner noted with curiosity. Far too neat.</p><p>Dr. Junkenstein barely had to instruct her, the given notes fully sufficient for the Summoner’s creation to take shape – first in translucent orange firelight, then in pale, imitation flesh. She watched the scientist carefully apply the final component, stitching it in place with a strange sort of thread that caused most of the visible join to disappear entirely, the green tint of the other pieces slowly seeping into the addition.</p><p>As interested as the Summoner was, observing these steps for the first time, for her own assured safety she resolved to depart before the lightning became involved. Still, her curiosity got the better of her as her eyes fell once more to the unknown handwriting.</p><p>“Who do you make them for?” she asked quietly.</p><p>The scientist seemed startled for only a moment, his shoulders jumping at the question, before he turned to the Summoner with confusion written across his goggled face.</p><p>“Uhh… nobody,” he answered as if it should have been obvious.</p><p>The Summoner gestured to the board with slight impatience. “Who provides the instruction?”</p><p>The scientist grew nervous again. “<em>They</em> do, sometimes” he answered sheepishly, a shrugging shoulder vaguely directed back toward the body behind him.</p><p>For a few moments, the Summoner internally debated the circuitous logic of a being yet to be created providing instruction for its own creation, before realizing it was one of her premises that must have been faulty. “They… are alive, before?” she posed with renewed curiosity, several awkward notes of her conversation with Sombra echoing strangely in her mind.</p><p>Junkenstein seemed to have difficulty arriving at an answer. “Err… kinda, but not really?”</p><p>The Summoner didn’t find that helpful at all, but she could see the scientist growing unpredictable, and that made her nervous. Without comment, she let the matter settle and made to depart.</p><p>“Uh, hey…” the scientist began again, causing the Summoner to stop in place mid-step.</p><p>They were both silent and still for a long moment.</p><p>“Do ya ever…” he began slowly, and when the Summoner turned partly to face him, he was making gestures around the back of his head and thighs. “Y’know, the… the dragon thing?” he completed especially cautiously. “Does it ever bother ya? Or…”</p><p>The Summoner stared strangely at the display.</p><p>Junkenstein had never before made any note of her appearance. No one in the castle did, and neither did most magical creatures, overall. It was part of why she’d found solace here, knowing and indulging in, but still tiring of, the fear or detestation she could inspire elsewhere.</p><p>But the betrayal remained a half-formed idea in her thoughts, as she noted the odd look in the scientist’s averted eyes. It wasn’t discomfort, nor disgust, nor malice, but instead, something oddly like <em>concern</em>.</p><p>She brought her forearms up to examine; the smooth blood-red scales and glowing heat-lines of her right, along with the purple-and-gold, sculpted metal panels of her left. She truly hadn’t thought of it for some time, perhaps for thousands of years. She rather <em>liked</em> her appearance, she decided. And infinitely more so than she did the idea of becoming one of the scientist’s projects, which she had gathered was the implication.</p><p>“No, never,” the Summoner answered, taking care to keep the words plain even while her eyes narrowed strangely in circuitous thought, “but… I suppose the concern is… a welcome gesture, in any case.”</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>She didn’t think about it again for some time, but she did pay more attention to the other creations, both in observance over the next several days and in remembered thoughts. She watched their eyes, most of all, her earlier assessment of Sombra now appearing more widespread than she’d previously realized.</p><p>The scientist’s confusing answer to her question now seemed less so. Despite the new, technical details she had to consider, the idea that the lightning had given <em>life</em> still seemed more apt a description than it ever had in the mere literal sense.</p><p>Finally, she had to know, for certain. On a night like any other, she retired to her quarters, and began work on another summoned form.</p><p>She left the construct in a temporary state of firelight, but the resemblance was plain. A warm, orange glow illuminating the room, the Summoner stared into the face that had been her own, so many millennia ago.</p><p>She supposed she did miss some things, as the memories returned. The softness of her skin, the feeling of running her fingers through her hair… but it wasn’t any more, or any less than what she had now. In the end, even having opened her mind to those questions she might have once feared, she couldn’t find any truth to the scientist’s apparent worry.</p><p>But in the midst of that determination, an entirely separate realization struck her.</p><p>For the first time, she looked upon her beginnings with not malice, but fondness. The exclusion, the condemnation and persecution she’d known in what now seemed such a fleeting moment of time had surely colored her memory. She’d long thought of her human self as weak, perhaps only for the futility of trying to survive in the time she’d lived, and for the far greater strength she possessed in her present state.</p><p>Now, she trailed clawed fingers through the strands of light that mimicked hair, set scaled hands on shoulders that weren’t, and wrapped her arms gently around the formed shape. She did those things, as if the gesture would grant the doomed, scared woman some semblance of the comfort she had been desperate for, but never known in life.</p><p>She held the firelight image until it vanished into the air, the unspent energy soon drawn back into the glowing fissure that ran down the center of her scaled chest.</p><p>It was only once it seemed the moment had passed, when she had set the indulgence behind her and, by chance, caught sight of herself in the mirror, that the realization hit her fully.</p><p>Though scaled, and with glowing, reptilian yellow eyes, there was more humanity in the Summoner’s face than she’d ever seen prior. Nothing in her features had changed, physically, but the confident, dragonlike grin was nowhere to be found, and neither were any of her frequent notes of frustration or distaste. Those glowing eyes were now widened in sadness, a solemn quiver shaking her slightly parsed lips.</p><p>Superficial differences aside, it was the same face she’d just looked upon. The face of… <em>Satya</em>. That had been her name… she supposed it still was. She was the same, truly, and…</p><p>…and it wasn’t too late.</p><p>She <em>still wanted</em> that comfort.</p><p>Satya’s heart was fire, and so it was impossible for her to feel the cold of the castle, but just then, she did, regardless. Felt the emptiness of the room that was hers alone. Felt the absence in the air around her. She crossed her arms over chest, if only to feel the presence of something against her.</p><p>For how many thousands of years had she resigned herself to solitude, without ever asking herself if that was what she truly wanted?</p><p>There were eyes on her again, surely casting judgement upon her hurried and decidedly inelegant run through the halls of the castle. She paid them no mind, her course steady and unhindered until she found herself at the threshold of the spiral staircase once again.</p><p>She couldn’t bear to bother with the slow climb.</p><p>Satya spread her wings, feeling the tension in her lower back as the attached, bat-like limbs lifted her from the landing in one grand pump against the air below her, then continued to propel her rapid ascent through the open column of the tower. The spiraled steps fell around her like a descending coil, the cold wind rushing against her face.</p><p>She landed in the threshold with an exhaling breath, wind pushed from her lungs in a way that shouldn’t have been a state of exhaustion but somehow felt as if it was. It was only after several blindly-taken steps forward that she finally noticed her preferred hideaway balcony was, as was its usual state, unoccupied.</p><p>Satya dropped to her knees, armor panels clinking against stone. She wasn’t sure for what reason, or for that matter, how long it actually was before she decided to simply lie there on the cold floor. Arms already crossed over her chest, she wrapped herself in her wings, feet pulling away from the back of the bench she usually sat upon and quiet gaze pointed not out into the lands beyond, but across to the blank, curved wall of the right-side tower.</p><p>When quiet footsteps finally rounded the staircase, Satya was sure she was imagining them.</p><p>Soft white slippers entered her vision, bandages wrapped around the left calf of the pair of lace-edged stockings that dropped to a gentle kneel.</p><p>“You okay down there?”</p><p>The words were spoken with a smile, but marked by concern of several sorts. It felt condescending, and all Satya could manage was a huffed whimper and the outward trace of an inward scowl.</p><p>Sombra pressed her lips into a thin line, her movements smoothly tensing until she had gained somewhat the appearance of the corpse she might have been mistaken for. “Is it about me?”</p><p>Satya’s eyes shot open. “<em>No</em>,” she insisted quickly, her hand reaching out for Sombra’s and encountering no resistance in taking it. “Only… in the sense that…” She shivered hesitantly, wincing and pleading eyes meeting those now looking patiently down at her.</p><p>“Could you stay with me?”</p><p>Life flowing again through her full, warm smile, Sombra let herself slow with Satya’s breathing, lowering herself to rest parallel along the cold stone. Fingers still intertwined with Satya’s, she’d set her left arm across for a place to rest her head, right arm laid out between them to clasp, perpendicular, as a third hand into the embrace.</p><p>Again, there was something disarming about her soft, soothing gaze, and Satya let several deep, heavy breaths be the last of her pain. “I don’t… think I want to be alone… anymore.”</p><p>Sombra’s eyebrows leapt, but there was more encouragement in it than critique. “Better late than <em>never</em>, I guess.”</p><p>Satya breathed a small chuckle as she caught the meaning.</p><p>“…Well, guess you’ve got a bit of a while, either way,” Sombra added, squeezing her right hand over their others.</p><p>The words struck Satya in a strange pause. “How long do you think <em>you</em> will live?” Technically, there was no prerequisite for any sort of eventual decay in the creations, at least as pertained to Satya’s role in the process, and her curiosity had never before wandered so intently to the matter.</p><p>Sombra’s face contorted in confusion. “Don’t know,” she answered semi-casually, shrugging off the idea. “I’ve just been thinking right now is good enough for me.”</p><p>Satya was even more confused, eyeing the other woman skeptically. “One moment is good enough?”</p><p>Sombra shrugged again, with a momentary note of sadness in her averting eyes. “Didn’t think I’d get even that, so… yeah.”</p><p>Beneath the right, bandaged palm, Satya rubbed her thumb over the smooth lace of the white glove hooked across Sombra’s left by her second finger. The image of her, so at ease even on the cold stone floor, clad in a <em>bridal gown</em> of all things with her hands so warmly interwoven with <em>Satya’s</em>…</p><p>Certainly, it was an image with implications that were difficult to ignore.</p><p>“Would you marry me?” Satya spoke nervously, her voice at low volume as her eyes focused on her own scaled, deep blood-red and molten-orange-lined skin where it ran close to the discolored, but still humanly soft texture of Sombra’s.</p><p>Sombra had tensed sharply at the words, muscles faintly shaking as wide, blank eyes held a frozen stare. It was only after several long moments that her eyes narrowed in half-betrayed skepticism.</p><p>“…You meant that <em>hypothetically</em>, didn’t you?”</p><p>“Yes…” Satya confirmed with a confused skepticism of her own, “am… I the sort of person… the sort of <em>being</em>, you would… I only ask, because you have seemed…”</p><p>Sombra sighed, rolling partially onto her back but keeping the original hold on Satya’s hand. “I don’t think I even <em>wanted</em> a wedding, not really.” She shrugged again, but snorted a brief laugh. “I guess I’m kinda stuck with those conversations now, though.”</p><p>She met Satya’s eyes with a displaying twist of her shoulder and a knowing smirk, but her gaze drifted out of alignment soon after. “Never thought I’d get to,” she whispered softly. “You… wanted an answer, before.”</p><p>She pondered another moment, but as quickly as it had disappeared, her smirk returned as she stared deeply back into Satya’s eyes and spoke aloud. “But you know what? <em>Yes</em>, Summoner. <em>Absolutely</em> I would marry you.”</p><p>The soft hold around a scaled hand again squeezed tighter, and Satya felt a warmth within her that was wholly distinct from her own fire.</p><p>A held hand became an outstretched arm, and slowly, Satya spread her wings apart to allow Sombra through. Arms wrapped around her torso, and Satya carefully did the same, minding the sharper edges of her clawed and metal-coated left-side limb. Unsure what to then <em>do</em> with her wings with Sombra so close, Satya hesitantly curled her left around Sombra’s waist. Sombra smiled broadly at that, lifting herself just enough off the ground for Satya to slip her right wing underneath and fully enclose the other woman in her batlike embrace.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>It was only with Sombra’s face nuzzled into her neck and chin that Satya remembered her own internal composition with a start of concern. “Am… am I making you too hot?”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“Afraid that ship’s sailed, <em>amiga</em>, but I’m not complaining,” Sombra chided brightly. In the midst of Satya’s continued state of worry, however, her tone became more gentle. “Mm? Not really, no. You’re just… <em>warm</em>. Like sitting by a fireplace. It’s nice.”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>Sombra settled herself wholly closer into the embrace, and Satya eased in return, closing her eyes and feeling the soothing weight of presence on her skin.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“Satya,” she whispered contentedly, only a slight twinge of worry dawning after the fact.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“What?”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“It’s… my name,” Satya continued nervously. “Before, I mean. And now, I think, too.”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“…Huh.”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>The word wasn’t a question, and struck oddly, as if Sombra had been carried along a somewhat different path of thinking than might have been expected. Satya pried open one eye, but the angle prevented her from gleaning anything remotely useful.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“Pardon?” Satya inquired finally, voice embedded with moderate confusion.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“No, I just realized… I never even heard mine out loud before.”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>Satya was taken slightly aback at that, trying to remember if she had ever actually used the woman’s name after she’d learned it. “Sombra?” she asked slowly, unsure whether she was requesting clarification on the matter or merely covering her bases.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“No.” A long, nervous pause, then a weighted word breathed lighter than air. “…Olivia.”</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>“Olivia,” Satya repeated, with a soft nod against her companion’s forehead.</p><p>
  <em></em>
</p><p>The desperately offered comfort in her continued embrace was much like what she’d offered the firelight image, but different, because Olivia was <em>here</em>, and <em>alive</em>, and offering Satya her own comfort in return. As they lay on the cold stone in the shadow of the rain, Satya’s fire-filled heart burned not with flame, but with all the warmth that life alone had denied, and whether it would last for a thousand lifetimes, or only for the fleeting moment, neither of them had to be alone, anymore.</p><p>
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